Terrorism In India The attacks on Indian Parliament and on Mumbai has left the people of India in a state of shock and fear for their life. The situation on Kashmir is still haunting the government and to add to the problems of Indian government is the recent attack on hotels in Mumbai killing many people including people from different nations. I think its time that India should follow a zero tolerance policy towards terrorism and the terrorists. The attack on Mumbai is “an attack on the spirit of India”. This nation is under attack.
The scale, intensity and level of orchestration of terror attacks in Mumbai put one thing beyond doubt: India is effectively at war and it has deadly enemies in its midst…. As in the case of the demolition of New York’s World Trade Center in 2001, Mumbai’s iconic monuments… have come under attack…. The terrorists who carried out the attacks are… armed to the teeth and extremely well-motivated. The question now is whether the nation can show any serious degree of resolve and coordination in confronting terror.
This war can be won, but it will require something from the political class, from security forces and from ordinary people. It’s time now to move beyond pointing fingers at one another…. It’s also time to end the habit of basing one’s stand on terrorism on the particular religious affiliation of terrorists, criticizing or exonerating them using their religion [as] a point of reference. Terrorists have no religion. Political bickering on this issue is divisive; what India needs now is unity. India’s divisive political culture, in which numerous parties, showing little or no spirit of cooperation, constantly battle each other for regional or national power, that has played a considerable part in allowing terrorism to breed. In India, it is still possible to approach counter-terrorism very casually and allow it to be diverted to byways that lead to dead ends. This is because national security has yet to carve out a worthwhile political constituency for itself.
Till 2005, terrorist strikes, except in [the northwestern region of] Jammu and Kashmir, were annual occurrences. After the [July 11, 2006] Mumbai train blasts, they became biannual affairs, and for the past 18 months, they have become quarterly features. Terrorism in India has become a routine occurrence…. The suffer-and-forget approach has become a national phenomenon. Politicians are routinely told by opinion pollsters that it does not pay to make anti-terrorism the central plank of any political campaign. The sense of outrage, they are told, is ephemeral and non-enduring.
The Taj and Oberoi hotels weren’t some out-of-the-way lunch homes, they are at the heart of Mumbai’s social and business life. If it could happen there, or so the chattering classes must feel, it could also happen in the Taj and Oberoi in Delhi, Calcutta and Bangalore. This Mumbai attack has brought terrorism to the doorstep of opinion-makers…. India may well recede into its traditional slumber, but there is a strong possibility that it will be jolted into realizing that the country is in the midst of an unconventional war. And that it is time to hit back – “with both love and bullets. ”
